24.05.18
Liverpool council plans to buy shopping centre in £4m profit drive
Liverpool City Council has announced plans to purchase the shopping centre situated above Liverpool Central train station in an attempt to push forward a series of multimillion-pound regeneration schemes in the city.
The authority, which is planning to purchase the lease from Aviva Life & Pensions, will work with developer Augur to continue the development of the Knowledge Quarter Gateway, which includes the famous Adelphi Building and Liverpool Lime Street station.
The purchase of the shopping centre, which contains over 50,000sqft of selling space, is expected to bring in £4.3m over the first five years.
Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said the move is “too good an opportunity to pass up.”
He added: “It enables us to acquire a strategic site in a prime city centre location which we have plans to regenerate and the investment makes a profit for the council to reinvest in our services.
“The beauty of this deal also means that plans for Lime Street, Lewis’s Building, Circus Liverpool and Central Shopping Centre are now all inter-connected. This will all help to underpin the development of the Knowledge Quarter Gateway which is the next major piece in a 10-year plan to regenerate the city centre and finally connect the waterfront to our universities.”
The purchase is part of a wider scheme from the developer to build the Circus shopping centre behind the Lewis building nearby to the station. Augur has said that it will help Network Rail with the expansion.
The approval of these plans on Friday will allow the council to take control of a 114-year lease on the shopping centre, whilst simultaneously entering a 20-year ‘underlease’ with Liverpool CSC Ltd.
The local authority has not revealed how much the purchase will cost as it is commercially confidential.
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Image credit: ChrisHepburn, iStock Images